Department of Social Sciences: Site Pages http://www.usma.edu/sosh/SitePages/Forms/AllPages.aspx RSS feed for the Site Pages list. Sun, 19 May 2013 04:07:13 GMT Microsoft SharePoint Foundation RSS Generator 60 en-US Department of Social Sciences: Site Pages http://www.usma.edu/sosh/_layouts/images/siteIcon.png http://www.usma.edu/sosh/SitePages/Forms/AllPages.aspx Course Catalog http://www.usma.edu/sosh/SitePages/Course Catalog.aspx
]]> Potter, William A CTR US USA USMA Thu, 22 Mar 2012 15:17:06 GMT http://www.usma.edu/sosh/SitePages/Course Catalog.aspx Prospective Faculty http://www.usma.edu/sosh/SitePages/Prospective Faculty.aspx
Faculty Application Information Page
Reviewing files for faculty selection? Link for Staff and Faculty:
Faculty Login
Starting an applicant file or accessing an existing file? Link for Faculty Applicants:
Faculty Candidate Login
Thank you for your interest in joining the Department of Social Sciences faculty! This web page provides guidance about our application process for rotating military faculty positions. Those considering applying to "Be a Sosh P" and those who want to bring promising candidates to our attention should bookmark this page and read on...
·  CADETS: If you are currently a cadet at USMA and you are interested in teaching in the Dept of Social Sciences, please contact MAJ Brittany Simmons, one of our personnel officers. Also, feel free to check out the responses to our Frequently Asked Questions.
·  SOSH FACULTY: If you teach or mentor a cadet you think would be a great addition to the SOSH Department one day, please contact MAJ Brittany Simmons and she will help you with the Letter of Recommendation process.
·  FACULTY ALUMNI: If you are an alumnus or friend of the department with awesome junior officers in your unit, help them become "Sosh P's" by talking to them about the opportunities in the department. Please pass your leads on to MAJ Brittany Simmons-- many of our current faculty are here now thanks to your efforts!
·  APPLICANTS: If you currently have a formal application file open with us, keep in close touch with MAJ Brittany Simmons so that we have your latest timeline and contact information.
We normally select officers for our program so that they begin graduate school between their sixth and eighth year of service. For example, in December 2012, we completed the selection of officers who will begin graduate school in summer/fall of 2014 and report to West Point in 2016. The majority of the officers selected by our board in December 2012 were in Year Groups 2006, 2007, and 2008.
The major consideration in this timetable is branch qualification; we normally only select officers who will be branch qualified in time to attend grad school with the pool of candidates that are under consideration. For instance, to be competitive for the December 2012 board, you must be branch qualified by August 2014. Our goal is to permit officers to attend graduate school for two years, teach at West Point for three years, and then return to their basic branch as a Major. This enables them to remain competitive for battalion command.
We are now building and screening candidate files for YG 07, 08, and 09 officers to select future instructors available for civil schooling in 2014 and assignment to West Point in 2016. Based on your availability, we will include you in this pool or pools for subsequent years.
We have transitioned all of our application files to a web based system. Consequently, please do not send us anything via hard copy, as we ask you to resubmit it electronically. Please contact the department's personnel officers, MAJ Brittany Simmons or MAJ Abby Mower, if you have questions.
Items that you will for a complete file are as follows:
·  Evidence of a strong military record. The Department places a strong emphasis on choosing officers who are doing extremely well in the performance of their military duties. Upload copies of all your OER's and AER's.
·  Transcripts. Upload copies of your undergraduate and (if applicable) graduate transcripts to your online file. Unofficial copies are acceptable. If you are a USMA graduate, please click on the following hyperlink to request your transcript - http://www.dean.usma.edu/transcripts.cfm
·  Copy of your GRE and/or GMAT scores. Please send us a copy of the ETS notification as soon as you get it. Please understand that we must have these scores before we will consider you for selection (unless you are deployed on an overseas contingency mission). To be competitive for entry into a Top 10 graduate school, you should aspire to achieve scores of over 160 on the verbal and 150 on the quantitative portions of the GRE, and scores of over 600 on both the verbal and quantitative portions of the GMAT. If you have scores below these levels, we suggest that you retake the test. Also, if your scores are more than five years old, you must retake the test. Contact your Education Center for more information on test administration. Again, we cannot give full consideration to an application without either GRE or GMAT scores.
·  Letters of recommendation. Two or three letters should comment on your potential to do outstanding work at a top American university and be a terrific classroom teacher. Letters from senior officers for whom you have worked are also particularly useful, as are letters from former and current instructors in the Department of Social Sciences. If you will not have a Command OER in time for the board, we HIGHLY recommend that you get a letter from your senior rater, assessing your performance in your branch qualifying job.
·  Copy of your most recent Officer Records Brief (ORB). Best accessed and downloaded from AKO.
·  An informal photograph. We like to match faces to names.
·  Your best estimate of an availability date to begin graduate school. This is dictated by the branch qualification requirements and the timing of future PCS and school assignments. If you have not already done so, please alert your branch manager that you are interested in competing for an assignment at West Point.
Please complete your application file as soon as possible and update it as necessary. If you wish to be considered to begin graduate school in 2015, your application file should be complete by 1 November 2013. This will allow us time to review your files for completeness prior to our selection board in December 2013. Final selection of new instructors is done by the Department Head, after the selection board composed of Academy Professors / Stem Heads makes its recommendation.
NOTE: WE RECOMMEND YOU POST INFORMATION TO YOUR ON-LINE FILE AS IT BECOMES AVAILABLE AND CONTINUALLY UPDATE YOUR FILE RATHER THAN WAIT UNTIL YOU HAVE EVERYTHING TOGETHER.
Instructor duty in the Department of Social Sciences is an important and useful milestone in your Army career.  The SOSH opportunity affords an officer an incredible broadening experience.  Your graduate education experience will allow you to dive deep into realms of academia that intrigue you. Additionally, it will help you foster valuable civil-military relationships with experienced, top-notch college faculty and some of the brightest of your civilian peers.  Once at West Point, you will find yourself working with an incredible cohort of fellow military officers in order to dynamically engage the Corps of Cadets in the classroom.  You will have the academic freedom to pursue scholarly research, mentor cadets through supporting various clubs and teams, and lead cadets through exciting opportunities like AIADs and trip sections.  SOSH alumni have had extremely successful careers in the Army, to include 9 full generals, 13 lieutenant generals, 22 major generals, and 18 brigadier generals. Many have served in various positions in the White House, the National Security Council, Departments of State, Defense, NATO, and scores have been selected for prestigious fellowships.  The Department’s rotating faculty is a dynamic and diverse group dedicated to scholarly excellence, total cadet development, and pursuing opportunities for future, personal contributions to the Army. Serving in SOSH is an investment in yourself and the Army!
Please see the SOSH website (Sosh Homepage) for details.
 
The point of contact for all applicants is MAJ Brittany Simmons.  MAJ Abby Mower can also assist you, although she is primarily focused on helping officers who are already in graduate programs. Our job is to help you complete your file, answer your questions, and ensure that you receive full and fair consideration. Do not hesitate to write or call! You should address all correspondence to:
 
Department of Social Sciences
United States Military Academy
ATTN: Personnel Officer
West Point, NY 10996-1718
  
You can also reach us by phone or email:
Email
Commercial
DSN
MAJ Simmons (New Files)
brittany.simmons@usma.edu
(845)938-3337
688-3337
MAJ Mower (Schools)
(845)938-3044
688-3044
 
       
 
 
The Sosh fax number is (845) 938-4563.
 
We appreciate your interest in teaching in the Department. Stay in touch!
 
]]> Potter, William A CTR US USA USMA Mon, 19 Mar 2012 18:26:05 GMT http://www.usma.edu/sosh/SitePages/Prospective Faculty.aspx American Politics http://www.usma.edu/sosh/SitePages/American Politics.aspx
American Politics Program
Students of American Politics, Policy, and Strategy study governance, policymaking, institutions, processes, and strategy-making, with focused attention on the U.S./American perspective. Cadets consider how U.S. foreign-defense policy and other government domestic policies are made. Institutions such as political organizations, the Presidency, and Congress are analyzed from both a U.S. and comparative perspective. Students also consider processes such as political leadership, voting and group behavior. Strong emphasis is placed on the unique, and what some might consider exceptional ‘soldier-state’ civil-military relationship in the American experience.
 
The West Point American Politics, Policy, and Strategy program provides students with a solid understanding of the fundamentals of political science theory and practice in the context of American Governance. Primarily taken during their third year, three “toolbox” courses are required to ground all majors in the discipline. In particular, students learn to quantitatively and qualitatively analyze political science phenomena and public policy, to understand the philosophical underpinnings of the American political system, and to develop an appreciation of and ability to compare the United States to other political systems. Armed with this foundation, students pursue a range of specialized electives both within and outside of the Department of Social Sciences, which affords them the opportunity to apply appropriate theories and principles in the analysis of complex political and economic issues. A final requirement of majors is an integrative experience that provides an in-depth investigation of a current national security policy challenge of immense scope and importance to the Department of Defense, and, particularly, to the Army.
 
The integrative experience enables cadets to apply what they have learned from both the core curriculum and their major to a directed analysis of a critical national security issue. The required course that provides this integrative experience is Advanced American Politics, Policy, and Strategy (SS480.) First, the course introduces an array of public policy “puzzles” – challenging issues that lie at the center of US national, regional, and international policy and politics and at the forefront of contemporary public debate. Second, cadets examine the constituent parts of the policymaking process with a focus on a subset of policy frameworks and the art and science of policy analysis and evaluation. Third, cadets explore a number of the policy cases introduced early-on in the course to ascertain the degree to which policy frameworks are applicable to real world policy problems. All along , students partner with classmates to develop and hone their analytical and assessment skills through group exercises and projects.
 
Lastly but perhaps most importantly, this integrative experience endeavors to impart on students the connectedness between the politics of public policymaking and the strategymaking behind the politics of war-policy.
 
This integrative experience is designed to challenge cadets to apply their learning to their forthcoming careers as Army professionals, and is designed in five sequential modules that supply answers to the following organizing questions:
  • What is military innovation and adaptation?

  • How are resources, fiscal and otherwise, made available to the Department of Defense; and how are defense policy decisions made?

  • To what future must America’s militaries adapt?

  • How do military institutions and professions change? What are the lessons from history about military innovation and adaptation in peacetime? Are there theories that explain the process of military innovation and adaptation, or even parts of it, and to which we can look for insights about the Army’s future?

  • What changes can I realistically expect to be a part of during the first five to ten years of my career?
    •  
    Faculty Members
    Program Director
    COL Isaiah Wilson
     
     
    Military Faculty 
    MAJ Heidi Brockmann
    AP Counselor 
    MAJ Dan Gade
     
     
     
    ]]>     Potter, William A CTR US USA USMA Thu, 22 Mar 2012 12:42:33 GMT http://www.usma.edu/sosh/SitePages/American Politics.aspx